It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world

Well, I hope you'll excuse the little break I had to take there.  Silly things like "work" and "life" get in the way sometimes.  Nothing to be done about it.

Last weekend I actually managed to leave both my apartment and my neighborhood behind and spent a night out in public, complete with other people, drinking, and basketball.

Yes, I'm talking about MSU's Final Four game against UConn.

HG2 and I headed down to the area near the Boston Garden (or the TD Banknorth Garden or whatever it is these days) to scope out bars that looked fun.  We found a good looking spot, got ourselves a table and waited for the big game to start.  Two things we noticed right away...there seemed to be a lot of drunk people around for 5:30 on a Saturday, and there were a lot of black and blue tshirts.  The reasons for this:  There was a Bruins game earlier in the afternoon at the Garden so people just filed out of there and into the bar to continue drinking, and everyone at this bar was either wearing a Bruins shirt or a UConn shirt.

Somehow it didn't really occur to me that a lot of people around here would be cheering for UConn, because it's not even in this state.  But then I figure, it's still New England, and these New Engladers stick together.

I was one of two MSU fans in the bar.  There were two people at the table next to us who were there to see UNC in the second game, and they ended up cheering with us.  That was it.  These two particularly drunk individuals sat down at a table on the other side of us, and within about 15 minutes realized that I was cheering at the 'wrong times' (HG2 was more subdued than I in his support, as he is in pretty much everything).  One guy looked at me and asked, "why are you clapping for THAT?" as though I were just a silly girl who didn't know when to cheer.  I politely turned to him and stated that my friend and I come from Michigan, which elicited this response:

"F#%$ YOU!  F#&$ MICHIGAN!  MICHIGAN STATE SUCKS!!!!!!!"

Which turned into a sort of a running commentary throughout the rest of the game.  At times more heated, at times less.  The first guy's friend sort of tried to explain it to me by saying he was from Connecticut, and UConn is all they have because there are no professional sports teams there and he knows all of the guys on the team and by the way would I check out his company's website and sign up?  This explanation was of course puncutated with 'eff you' and 'MSU sucks' and this drunk guy leaning closer and closer as he berated my team and me personally.  I thought the whole thing was pretty funny, but HG2 did offer to switch seats with me if I was uncomfortable.


Our neighbors' anger toward us was renewed every time we clapped, every time we cheered, pretty much every time they realized we were still there.  Meanwhile, on the other side, our new friends were cheering ever louder for the green and white in support.  After a few cocktails I became BFF with the girl who proceeded to unleash her entire life story on me (it was pretty juicy).  Her boyfriend was not terribly thrilled about the sharing of personal information, but he seemed pretty resigned to it, and probably (quite rightly) figured they would never see me again, what did it matter?


So with my new friend on my left and my new enemies on my right, I watched the Spartans take victory in what I like to think of was their actual championship game (not that I'm ashamed of them for Monday night, but I just think they left everything out there on Saturday).  After the game, and in the spirit of good sportsmanship, I turned to the guys on my right and congratulated them on a good game.  That got me this reponse:


F%&$ YOU, LEAVE THIS BAR.  I'M SERIOUS.  LEAVE.


I again smiled politely and turned back to friendlier faces.  After awhile that guy did come back to shake my hand, apologize, and let me know that he just gets really into these games.  I told him no problem, wished him a pleasant evening and watched as he and his fellow UConn fans filed out slowly, with their heads down in defeat.


HG2 and I had agreed with our new friends that because they were our allies in the first game, we would do our part and cheer for UNC in the second.  This lasted for about 20 minutes before the bar turned into a big dance party (poor HG2 had to look through a sea of dancing girls in order to see the basketball game.  How very hard for him) and my new friend had a little too much to drink and had to be carted off to her hotel by a less than pleased boyfriend.  However, he's the one who bought the second round of shots so he's really got no one to blame but himself.


The rest of the night was fairly routine, watched the rest of the game, got some pizza around midnight, headed home and crashed, then spent Sunday in a world of hurt (it was totally worth it).


We later discovered that the MSU alumni bar was next door to the bar we were at.  One door over and we would have been surrounded by people in green & white.  But somehow I think even if we had gotten the right bar, it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.  Or crazy.